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BSNL selects four firms for WiMax project Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd has given Letters of Intent (LoI) to Teracom, Take Solutions, Adishwar India and Ampoules to roll out WiMax-based broadband services as a franchisee.
BSNL had received bids from five companies of which four have been selected to offer broadband services on a revenue-sharing model.
While Teracom has partnered with Cisco for the project, Take Solution has a tie-up with Chinese vendor ZTE. Adishwar and Ampoules have partnered with Israeli equipment vendor Alvarion. The fifth bid from E-Mall, backed by ZTE, did not make the cut.
The private firms have offered to give between 10 per cent and 32 per cent of the revenue earned across various circles to BSNL.
Teracom will roll out BSNL's broadband services in Rajasthan, Bihar and Karnataka. Take Solution had emerged the lowest bidder in Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh and Orissa.
BSNL had appointed Soma Networks as its first franchisee in Gujarat, Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh. The deal with Soma was done in 2008 with a plan to cover nearly 200 million people by 2011. As a part of this operating partnership, Soma has invested in the network rollout, and will manage the service on behalf of BSNL. Interestingly, Soma did not bid for any new circles.
This is the second attempt by BSNL to appoint franchisee for rolling out broadband services in the urban areas. Earlier, the project had run into a controversy after it was found out that some of the bidders existed only on paper.
Even though BSNL was given the spectrum almost a year ago, it has not been able to take advantage of the lead it has over private players due to delays in finalising the tender. The PSU had divided its WiMax rollout into two parts. While the franchisee part got delayed due to the poor tender conditions, the rural part has seen some movement forward.
Chennai-based Gemini Communications, ZTE, US-based Harris Stratex and Alvarion had emerged the four lowest bidders for the supply of 7,000 WiMax base stations to BSNL in the rural areas.
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Originally Posted by meetdilip 
